On the 18th April, the town of Armanaz in the north-western countryside of the city of Idlib witnessed an escalation between Hayet Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the hegemonic jihadi group in Idlib province, and Hurras al-Din (HAD), the group believed to be Al-Qaeda’s wing in Syria. Reportedly, tensions escalated after HTS members attempted to expel HAD personnel from their bases in Armanaz.[1] The dispute was shortly contained without any reported causalities. The incident was not the first of its kind, as the groups have seen occasional tension over other issues, such as HTS’s severing of ties with Al-Qaeda, the Turkish military presence in north-west Syria and their positions on the international agreements concerning the situation in Idlib. This has led some to argue that HTS’s decision to destroy HAD has already been made. To assess the plausibility of such a claim, one needs to understand the complicated and fragile relationship between the two groups, their common grounds and the power dynamics between and within the jihadi factions in Idlib.[2]

BACKGROUND

Since the organisaton’s last rebranding in January 2017, HTS has sought to present itself as a local group aimed at fighting the Syrian regime without any global agenda. A cursory look at the group’s statements, its weekly magazine (Ebaa) and leadership interviews is enough to see the discursive shift from global jihadism to a local focus. Terms such as ‘the jihad of the umma’ or the jihad of the Islamic nation and ‘the jihad against nusayriya’ (a pejorative term used mainly by Salafi-jihadists to describe Alawites) have disappeared and been replaced with terms such as the ‘jihad to defend the Syrian revolution’ and the ‘struggle for freedom of the Syrian people’. For the leadership, which severed the group’s ties with both Islamic State and al-Qaeda in 2013 and 2017, respectively, delisting the group from different global terrorism lists and securing its political future in Syria has been a priority. However, a block of hardliners who rejected the separation from al-Qaeda, predominately consisting of foreign elements such as Abu Khadija al-Urduni, Sami al-Oraydi and Abu Hammam al-Shami, defected from HTS and formed HAD at the beginning of 2018. 

The ideological differences between the two groups, however, do not necessarily mean that HTS will crush HAD. HTS’s internal discourse, which shares HAD’s perception of the Turkish Army as ‘infidel’, as well as the respect and popularity that HAD seniors enjoy within HTS ranks, make it difficult for HTS to mobilise it fighters against HAD. Containing HAD, rather than eliminating it, allows HTS to maintain its internal cohesion as well as its usefulness to Turkey’s plan in Idlib.

The Turkish Presence in Syria

Beginning in 2017, HTS came to realise that, to increase its odds of survival, it should maintain a ‘cooperative’ but cautious relationship with Ankara. Turkey is the only state standing against Assad and is involved militarily, economically and politically in the Syrian conflict. Antagonising Turkey, which is the main backer of HTS’s local rival, the Syria National Army, means locking HTS in a pincer movement between the Turkish army and its local partners and Assad’s forces. Twelve Turkish military observation points, which were installed with the facilitation of HTS in Idlib in 2018, were just the beginning of a more assertive role that Ankara has played until the present.

HTS, however, has always met the growing Turkish presence with unease and has struggled to provide theological justification to convince its fighters. In his article ‘Leak Reveals Jihadists’ Weakening Grip in Syria’s Idlib’, Sam Heller analyses a leaked video of HTS’s shar’i, Abu al-Fatah al-Farghali who confirmed to HTS fighters that ‘the Turkish Army is a secular institution, and secularism amounts to “infidelity” and “apostasy” from Islam.’ Nevertheless, he theologically justifies the Turkish military presence based on two concepts. First ‘recourse to the infidel against the infidel’ (al-isti’ana bil-kafir ala al-kafir), which Islamic jurisprudence licenses in situations of ‘necessity’. This means that in order to defeat the ‘infidel’ Kurds, aligning with the ‘infidel’ Turkey is permissible. Second, ‘committing the lesser evil’. In this case, co-operating with Turkey is less harmful to HTS than a confrontation that it would probably lose, given it is already fighting the Syrian regime on several other fronts. This would lead to Turkey applying its secular, positivist laws in territories currently ruled by HTS law.

We also should not forget that HTS’s self-image as a Salafi-jihadist group, which applies al-Hakkimmya or Allah’s rule instead of man-made laws, has never changed. This particular perception of Turkey as a secular ‘infidel’ state, which does not apply al-Hakkimmya, is shared between many in HTS—including seniors and shar’i such as al-Farghali—and HAD. The prominent jihadi ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who is arguably the godfather of HAD and often shares its materials on his Twitter and Telegram accounts, reflects HAD’s vision by ‘warning’ against the ‘soft secularism’ of Erdogan.[4]

In another article published on his website, ‘Manbar al-Jihad wal -Tawhid,’ al-Maqdisi argues that while it is legal to ‘fight with infidel party against another infidel party in case of extreme necessity, it is highly undesirable’. He reasons that fighting along with ‘infidels’ would only ‘waste the gains of jihadis, squander their capacities, allow hypocrites and tawaghyit (tyrannical rulers who arrogate God's absolute power and use it to oppress people) to exploit their efforts and win over their sacrifice.’[5] Following this advice, HAD has never cooperated with Turkey, although it has never confronted the Turkish army militarily due to HTS’s restraint and the imbalance of power between the two actors. As an al-Qaeda affiliate, HAD considers the Turkish army, along with the Russian miilitary and the Syrian Arab Army, as secular and argues they should be fought for the sake of the Muslim umma. 

THE RUSSIAN-TURKISH CEASEFIRE

In November 2018, HAD formed an alliance with other two factions—Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Din—under the banner of wa-harid al-mu'minin or the ‘incite the believers’ military room of operation. This group shares HTS’s position regarding the Astana and Sochi agreements and the recent 5th of March Russian-Turkish ceasefire, which was preceded by an unprecedented military escalation between Ankara and Damascus.

One week before signing the agreement, dozens of Turkish servicemen were killed by airstrikes conducted by Assad’s forces with a green light from Russia. To retaliate, Turkey launched ‘Operation Spring Shield’, in which it destroyed Syrian Arab Army installations, defence systems and more than a hundred tanks, and killed more than 2,000 of its troops, according to Turkish state media.[6] The public reaction of HTS—which has frequently stated its rejection of Sochi and Astana, though it complies with them in part—to these developments reflected its pragmatic approach. While it thanked Turkey for its military help, without which the Syrian regime would have probably advanced to the city of Idlib, the group expressed its unpalatability and its lack of trust in the Turkish-Russian ceasefire, describing it as a loose plan that aims at empowering the Syrian regime over new territories in Idlib.

Similarly, the ‘Incite the believers’ room of operation released a statement in August 2019 rejecting both the Astana and Sochi agreements, claiming that they aim at ‘committing infanticide on the revolution and its jihad.’ HAD, which is the main block within ‘Incite the believers’, released a video of its leader Abu Hamam al-Shami, in which he expressed his group’s rejection of any international agreement and warned of the ‘poisonous money of the funders, and the sugarcoated promises of the guarantors’, referring mainly to Turkey and Russia.[7] Al-Shami, moreover, called on jihadis to defy the enemy by waging guerrilla war, or what is known by jihadis as a war of al-Nikkaya, which aims at inflicting harm on the enemy without gaining territory. His call was answered by HAD and ‘Incite the believers’ on different occasions after the Russian-Turkish agreement was signed. On the 7th of March 2020, the room released a video of its fighters firing primitive mortars towards the Syrian regime’s territories in Latakia, challenging the ceasefire.[8]

The 5th March Agreement established a 6km security corridor both north and south of the M4 highway, which connects Latakia to Aleppo through the town of Saraqib in southern Idlib. Moreover, it stipulated conducting a joint Turkish-Russian patrol along the M4 from the settlement of Trumba (2km west of Saraqib) to the settlement of Ain-aI-Havr.[9] Unwilling to challenge Turkey militarily, HTS’s disapproval of these protocols manifested in mobilising civilians to block the M4 highway while denying its responsibility for the protests.[10] ‘Incite the believers,’ on the other hand, challenged the agreement in its own way by firing three grad rockets at Hmeimim, the Russian airbase in Syria, on the 9th of May.[11]

HAD’s popularity with HTS ranks

These similarities between HAD and a significant part of HTS concerning the Turkish role in Idlib, as well as the rejection of international agreements including the 5th of May ceasefire, renders HTS’s assumed plan of quashing HAD difficult. For many fighters and seniors within HTS ranks, HAD enjoys some sort of popularity. Researcher of Salafi-jihadist groups, Fadi Hussein pointed out that ‘eventually, HTS has no other option but to dissolve HAD.’ Nonetheless, Hussein asserted ‘a significant block of HTS would turn against al-Jolani if he opts for such a decision.’ Another way of seeing HAD is to think of it as the ‘ideologically pure’ splinter of HTS. HAD senior Sami al-Oraydi for example, who served as the chief shari’a authority in HTS when it operated under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra, is still a respected figure among HTS fighters, says Abu Khalid, an HTS fighter.

Although HTS’s history is full of aggression against other factions, such as Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zenki, HAD is different. HTS’s media statements, Twitter and Telegram accounts have rarely, if ever, publicly criticised figures from HAD. Abu Khalid, an HTS fighter told me: ‘al-Hurras are respected by many people inside HTS. They (al-Hurras) have never participated in any infighting between the factions; their only goal is to fight the regime.’ In fact, HAD not only refrained from taking part in any infighting but also ‘united with two other factions when it formed “incite the believers”’, says Abu Khalid.

 In terms of numbers and military power, HTS undoubtedly has the capacity to crush HAD. According to a UN report published in January this year, the number of HAD fighters is estimated between 3,500 and 5,000, while the number of HTS fighters is between 12,000 and 15,000.[12] According to Fadi Hussein, Ankara has not given a direct order to HTS to pursue such a plan. It did, however, ‘send some innuendos regarding the issue.’ Nonetheless, HTS understands that it is Ankara’s only ‘partner’ capable of helping it to fulfil its commitment to combating all forms of terrorism and eliminating all terrorist groups in Syria as designated by the UNSC, such as HAD and the Turkistan Islamic Party. This could be a reason behind al-Jolani’s refraining from pursuing the dissolution of HAD, as once this goal is complete HTS loses some of its value to Turkey.

Therefore, for now at least, HTS will likely continue to show gestures of goodwill towards Turkey by tightening its grip on HAD, without destroying it completely and losing its leverage vis-à-vis Ankara. Indeed, the group has occasionally prevented HAD from targeting the regime in different areas in Idlib and Latakia, avoiding an escalation of the confrontation between the regime and Turkey and demonstrating HTS’ ability to control the group.

Under Turkish pressure, HTS might consider the idea of obliterating HAD. The plan, however, is unlikely to materialise in the near future. The ‘convoluted’ relationship between the two groups, as al-Jolani described it, as well as the popularity of HAD among HTS ranks represent serious impediments for such a battle. The common grounds shared between a significant block of HTS and HAD on issues such as the international agreements and the Turkish presence in Idlib would make it difficult to convince many HTS fighters to confront HAD. HTS and its leader, the pragmatic al-Jolani, are in a precarious position amidst Turkish pressure, local rivalry and the Syrian regime’s military offensive, and it is unlikely that it will risk its internal cohesion by waging war against HAD.

AUTHOR

Orwa Ajjoub is an affiliated researcher at the center for Middle Eastern Studies in Lund university. In 2018, Orwa graduated from the same institution where he defended his Master’s thesis which looks at the theological aspect of the split between Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS in 2013. Although his interest has been mainly focused on Salafi-Jihadi groups in the Middle East, Orwa wrote some articles about the Syrian society during the war and particularly about Syrian LGBTQ in Europe. His work was published on different media websites such as Syria Deeply, Huffington Post and World Policy. During the last two years, Orwa has participated in two academic conferences where he discussed al-Qaeda presence in Syria. In addition to writing journalistic articles, Orwa is currently working on an academic report discussing the future menace of the Islamic state and other Salafi-Jihadi groups such Al-Qaeda.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] https://www.syriahr.com/تحرير-الشام-تضيّق-على-تنظيم-حراس-الدي/

[2] https://www.almodon.com/arabworld/2020/4/19/إدلب-صدام-وشيك-بين-حراس-الدين-و-تحرير-الشام

http://www.shaam.org/news/syria-news/تمهيداً-لاجتثاث-حراس-الدين-اجتماع-لقيادات-من-تحرير-الشام-لبحث-التجييش-ضدَّ-التنظيم.html

https://al-akhbar.com/Syria/286578

[3] https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/leak-reveals-jihadists-weakening-grip-in-syrias-idlib/

[4] http://ilmradio.com/2020/03/16/عندما-يكون-ميزاننا-التوحيد-أولا-ودائم/

[5] http://ilmradio.com/2020/05/05/تحرير-القول-في-قتال-المسلم-للضرورة-مع-ك/

[6] Amberin Zaman, Turkey launches Operation Spring Shield against Syrian forces. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/03/operation-spring-shield-clash-turkey-syrian-arab-army-idlib.html

[7] https://jihadology.net/2020/03/07/new-video-message-from-ḥuras-al-dins-abu-hamam-al-shami-oh-people-of-al-sham-steadfastness-steadfastness/

[8] https://twitter.com/OAjjoub/status/1237762546771415043

[9] https://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4072593?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw&_101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw_languageId=en_GB

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TBG3W5zhWE

[11] https://twitter.com/OAjjoub/status/1259545654046732290/photo/1

[12] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45401474